The advertising campaign is the brainchild of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, which fears a sharp reduction in tourism and gatherings of other kinds, just as business was picking up after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"You can't just say we're open, come," the bureau's president, Steve Perry, told the organisation as he launched the campaign, according to blogofneworleans.com. "You have to acknowledge it. It's sorta like the poster with the family in front of the shark tank at the aquarium after Katrina, saying we're pleased to report that this is the only part of New Orleans that's still under water."

I'm thinking maybe the ad campaign was an attempt to punk them into giving us more money. Actually, I don't know what the hell to think. It's dredging up really bad memories of our former mayor planning a fund raising trip to NYC in the wake of Katrina, then publicly commenting that the WTC site was still a big hole in the ground.

I doubt this campaign was even on Mayor Landrieu's radar before it was announced but let's hope the channels of communication get better in the immediate future. Perhaps we should at least wait until we actually get the extra 75 million before we insult them. I've been insulting the hell out of them but I never thought to ask for money to do it. Now that I think about it, that's brilliant if it works.

The bureau's president, Steve Perry, said the ads "were not anti-British at all" and blamed the Guardian coverage for forcing it to cancel any adverts "referring to anything British in every form".

"Already in our London office we've had multiple major cancellations because of the article," he said. "We've had to cancel the entire thing and we are moving to an ad that pokes fun at the president.

"We thought, with all the grief, we would try to turn things a little bit lighter and more tongue in cheek. So far, unfortunately, it has had devastating consequences that were not intended.

"The British are the most popular of all of the foreign visitors here. It's just horrifying to us."

So we're now going to take a jab at the president? It's the Guardian's fault we created the ad?

Perry, who sounded despairing as he speculated on what he feared would be the political fallout over the campaign and the impact on a meeting with BP later in the day, said he could not understand how anyone in the UK could consider New Orleans anti-British when people there loved BP – a view not guaranteed to be a hit with Guardian readers.

The NOMCVB & Peter Mayer's post-K ads were equally unbelievable. The water/flooding was no joke and their tongue-in-cheek ads sucked.

I cannot understand how they could be so short-sighted. When you plan ad campaigns, you have to get past the tendency to turn the creative sessions into closed-off joke marathons. This shows how insulated the CVB leadership is from the rest of the world. Those 6 figure salaries take a toll on your common touch and common sense after a couple of decades.

Coming from being Chief of Staff (we called him governor since Big Daddy seemed to empower him to do pretty much anything) to this lofty job has kept Perry from being in touch with the small people. That's his excuse. For the agency, there is no excuse. They are supposed to know how to avoid unintended consequences, whether it be lost in translation due to language, or misinterpreted due to cultural differences.

I'll give Perry a half-hearted pass. But no excuses for Peter Mayer. They should know better.

No doubt the British and Europeans have been a plague on the planet since 1492. But we have no room to criticize since our treatment of the natives has been just as horrible.

I don't give Perry the pass. He ultimately approves or disapproves the campaign message, and I honestly am not as concerned about the agency campaign as I am him feeling the need to take on the Guardian and explain his existence. WTF? Just shut up. Change the fucking campaign and move on man, don't write a diatribe to a notoriously inflammatory paper blaming them for your misstep. He's throwing gasoline on the fire.

And the second thing I'm concerned about is "poking fun at the president". Why do we need to poke fun period? Is now the time to poke fun? Why not just tell people the truth...New Orleans needs you now more than ever...please come see us. I don't know about you but I don't think this is the time to be flippant.

I have friends in other parts of the country and they are pissed off and freaked out just like we are...this thing is not funny in any way, shape, or form. I'm no advertising genius but it seems any message we send to the world should be one of solidarity and sincerity, not sarcasm. Sarcasm is fine among each other because we're tyring to fucking cope, but that's not a 5 million dollar message we need to send to the world.

But what the fuck do I know....I am admittedly a little jaded right now. No, I'm very jaded right now.

Anon 9:32,

I understand your sentiment. I don't even have a "But". I see the other side of the story but I can't argue with you.

What I find amazing, which I have heard very little outrage over, is that the fact that 11 lives were lost to this accident, and an advertisement campaign uses language bragging that we "survived".I think it points to the self-centered self-absorbed nature of those behind the campaign, and the moneygrab that is really behind it.